Immigrants' advocates decry cervical cancer vaccine order

"It's outrageous," said Sara Sadhwani, project director for the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California. "It seems absolutely premature to mandate this for immigrant women."

The new requirement went into effect Aug. 1 and will apply to more than 130,000 immigrants a year.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June 2006 approved the vaccine Gardasil for females ages 9 to 26 to block strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV, a sexually transmitted virus that can cause cervical cancer. About 4,000 women in the U.S. die of cervical cancer each year.

The national Centers for Disease Control and Prevention quickly recommended the vaccine for 11- and 12-year-old girls, with catch-up shots up to age 26. (The vaccine works best if given early, before a young woman is sexually active and may have already contracted the virus.)

Unknown to many immigrant and health advocates, a 1996 immigration law directs the Citizenship and Immigration Services to require that new immigrants receive inoculations that the CDC's immunization committee recommends for U.S. residents.

"It's not really a decision of ours," said immigration service spokeswoman Sharon Rummery. "We can't cherry-pick the recommendations of the committee."

To help protect the health of U.S. residents, foreigners applying for permanent residency are required to undergo medical exams and receive vaccines against such highly contagious diseases as measles, meningitis and polio.

CDC spokesman Curtis Allen added that his agency's immunization committee, an advisory panel of physicians, did not consider the immigration implications of its recommendation.

"They made the recommendation based on the effectiveness and importance of the vaccine," he said. "That's their charge, and not immigration."

The CDC, Allen said, stands by its recommendation.

Although most medical organizations echo the CDC's advice that Gardasil be part of routine vaccinations, it has not been universally embraced. About a quarter of U.S. teen girls -- roughly 2.5 million -- received at least one of the three-shot series in the vaccine's first full year of distribution, according to the CDC. The goal is 90%. So far only Virginia has made Gardasil mandatory.